Anger Management
by BlackBear53
Summary: When Callen met Garrison and learned his name it made me happy. Garrison's choice of words made my mind go on a rampage and this story came out. It has sat on my computer long enough. Hope Hetty has her insurance paid up. Enjoy this one shot.


Anger Management

Henrietta Lange strode through the front door of the Operation Center for NCIS, heading for her office. She paused to peruse her domain. The lights were still off but she gave a shudder, sure that someone waited for her in the darkness. A wave of apprehension hit and she almost stumbled because of it. She was aware that Mr. Callen had arrived home last night from Russia and there would be trouble brewing with her senior agent. His latest trip to Moscow had given him more information about his family and gave him something real; his father and that's the one thing she hadn't wished to share with him, just yet. She felt she could handle the situation and Mr. Callen, she just didn't feel the urge to do it at this moment. He thought that he knew everything now by he didn't, not yet, not even close, and she didn't want to go any further until she had to.

She moved through the dimly lit hallway to her desk. Sitting on her desk were two teacups and a pot of freshly brewed tea spotlighted by the desk lamp. By the aroma it was the one she preferred when she was in consternation. Her lead agent sat waiting for her with his face in shadows. Obviously his thoughts stirred and he didn't know how to deal with what he'd learned. Her immediate thought was "Oh bugger." Even before she turned to her desk after hanging up her purse, she garnered his pain, saw the pain flowing from his blue eyes and she felt the chill of anger from him. It set her back but for just a moment. He seethed and she'd known that both he and his rage would come sooner or later. One of her lies had finally caught up with her. "Mr. Callen, good morning. You are in especially early today."

Hetty would never let on that he'd startled her.

Callen got an impression that he'd gotten under her skin a wee bit.

She saw that it satisfied him in a left-handed kind of way and it unsettled her further.

G sat back in his seat and felt vindicated by this small victory over Henrietta Lange. He smiled and knew that Hetty felt a sense of distilled anger come along with that smile. He'd spent the entire flight home thinking about how to handle this and now it began. He sat forward in his seat and chewed the inside of his cheek. "Konstantin Chernoff, when did he die?" Callen watched as she slowly looked over her teacup at him.

"What no 'Good Morning' Mr. Callen?" She put her cup of tea down, poured the second cup and pushed it across the desktop to him. Her mind raced as she tried to keep one step ahead of him. He was a worthy adversary when it came to finding his family. She'd just barely kept the file that one other time she dueled with him on this issue. He turned his back on her and told her he'd find them himself as he walked out of her garden. Now she knew that he'd found his father. Nikita had called her right after Callen had left him. He wanted Hetty to make sure his son would be alright. It's the only thing that would have set him off like this. Damn you Nikita. "Chernoff died eight months prior to losing Arkady in Moscow last year. Why do you ask?"

Callen reached for the cup she'd pushed across to him and watched her closely as she sat back in her chair cosseting her teacup. The chessmaster in her was formidable and he'd have to be very careful in how he approached the subject of family. Meeting "Garrison" in Russia had been a heart-warming experience. He'd met his father and been given his birth name: Grisha Alexandrovitch Nikoleav Callen. It meant the world to him to have that information and finally meet the man who sired him. The reason he'd never met his father before sat across the desk from him. She'd taken that from him. He wanted to know why. "It seems he's not dead after all. He helped us escape from Moscow." Callen let that bit of information hover in the air between him and Hetty. He watched her face as she digested the tidbit.

She never flinched. She never gave the impression that she knew it but it was there just the same. "Well it seems we received some shaky intelligence on Mr. Chernoff. What can I help you with?"

Callen looked around the room at the items she'd collected and wondered who else's lives she kept secret from them and why she felt she could do that. "Hetty I'm forty-six years old and I think that it is time you told me about my family. I don't need to be protected from anyone, any more," He stopped to look her in the eye. "except maybe you." He saw that the statement shook her ever so slightly.

She looked across the room at the man she'd raised from the time he was fifteen to keep him out of foster homes and detention centers. She honestly thought that she'd done the best for him, protecting him from the Comescu and anyone else that had come looking for him. She had kept him moving around the world by finding new agencies to work in and new people to work with him all the time. She'd trained him to be a legend. Other agents had heard his name but never saw his face and now he just wanted her to throw it all out the window so that he could access what she knew about his family. She acknowledged that he had the right to know. She just didn't think that he had the wisdom to know what to do with the information. There were other organizations that would love to get their hands on him, his father or even her. That happened to be something that she could not allow. "Mr. Callen, I've told you before and will continue to tell you, that if I haven't told you something, it is for your own good."

He'd heard that phrase one time too many. He put down the cup forcefully, but just gently enough not to break it and began, unconsciously, fidgeting with his fingers. He was angry and trying to find a way to express it without blowing up. It was never easy with Hetty. "Hetty, my father gave me my birth name and told me that my mother would want me to know that. It wasn't past tense, it's current. You told me that my mother was dead. Is she really?"

The question jolted the diminutive woman. It wasn't what she expected to hear from the man sitting in front of her. How could Nikita make such a mistake? It could cause so much irreparable damage to Callen, Nikita and her. Clara needed to stay dead. "I gave you a picture of her and told you what happened. You yourself saw her shot on the beach. You remembered it didn't you?"

Callen thought back to what he remembered in Romania; a woman sitting on the beach and men who shot her while another gave him toys to play with. He cherished the picture that his boss had given him four years ago, but was it real? He didn't know for sure. He needed to be positive because most of his life this far had been lies and most were perpetrated by his mentor. There would be no more of this. "Hetty I remember seeing something and you gave me a picture but is it really my mother? I don't know what I saw, I was four years old and traumatized. I need those answers now.

Hetty acknowledged his request with a nod of her head and she picked her teacup up and held it in front of her face. Her mind worked at a thousand miles an hour. What could she possible say to him to keep him from searching for any more information on Clara Callen? "Mr. Callen, the CIA retrieved your mother's remains from Romania and she is buried just outside of Washington, DC. I can tell you where and give you time off to go and visit her grave."

Callen's head shot up at this bit of information. "You've known this all these years and are just now telling me this? Why has this taken so long and why the mystery about her grave? You could have taken me there thirty years ago when I lived in DC or at least told me about it." His face showed two things, exasperation with his boss and pain from being kept in the dark. "Why now? Is it because I found my father? I'm letting you know that as soon as the dust settles I'm going back to find my father and bring him here. I want to spend time with him."

The lights in the building went on. Eric must have arrived.

Callen rose to leave but he turned back to his boss and mentor. "We're not finished with this discussion. There are many more questions to be answered by you. I will not rest until I have those answers." He left her office and walked into the bullpen just as Sam arrived.

Hetty watched him interact with Sam. She knew that he'd be back for more and she'd have to come up with more answers that he'd find palatable. She rose and went to the gym to work out for an hour or two.


End file.
